After a successful 2010 World Cup that saw the United States win its group for the first time since 1930, U.S. head coach Bob Bradley has been retained through 2014. While the primary objective of the team – advancing out of a group that looked fairly easy at the time of the draw – was accomplished, there was a widely held belief that the United States had a chance to make a deeper run in the tournament. Grant Wahl lamented:
All the U.S. had to do was beat Ghana and Uruguay—two fellow soccer mid-majors—and the Yanks would have reached the semifinals, won global hosannas and turned their own fickle nation into full-fledged fútbol lunatics.
That feeling is a bit misguided. The U.S. had a chance to advance deeper in the knockout rounds, but they did not for the simple fact that they were not good enough. The 2010 squad was not a threat to win the World Cup because their players were not as talented as the ones for Spain, Brazil or Germany.
With Bradley returning as head coach, there is the very real possibility that a team made up primarily of 2010 holdovers (Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey and Oguchi Onyewu) will be showing up at the World Cup in Brazil 2014. That is not necessarily a bad thing – Bradley has made significant improvements in his tactical abilities and pushed all the right buttons substitution-wise at the World Cup.
There is little doubt that Bradley can get the 2010 U.S. holdovers to the knockout rounds of Brazil 2014, and perhaps to the quarterfinals. But the most important question to ask is whether retaining Bradley raises the ceiling for U.S. soccer – can they go toe-to-toe with the powers of world soccer in the knockout stages and prevail? Right now, the answer is no.
Outside of Bradley, the most attractive candidate for the job was former Germany coach Jurgen Klinsmann. He lives in the United States, is married to an American woman, and has expressed an interest in the job since Bruce Arena left the post in 2006. Germany drew raves for its wide-open style in the 2006 World Cup before bowing out in the semifinals to eventual champion Italy. But apparently that is not enough to convince Leander Schaerlaeckens of ESPN that he would have been a good choice:
Klinsmann is all about molding a soccer culture into his liking. As Germany’s national coach, he turned Der Mannschaft from a hard-nosed bunch of scrappers to the flamboyant fancy-pants team we see today.
Schaerlaeckens inadvertently makes a good argument against Bradley here. If the goal is to challenge for a World Cup, the United State is best served to change their style of play. This means a focus on their advantages in speed, athleticism and finishing set pieces.
The team simply cannot beat the powers in Europe and South America by playing their game. The key is to create a style all their own, something Klinsmann could have tried to do. As it stands, the U.S. has exactly four players with the capability of scoring on any team in the world – Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore and Charlie Davies, something that has to change.
The team has a potential world-class central midfielder – young Jose Francisco Torres – but will Bradley recognize his unique talents? Can the back line be revamped in four short years to avoid the early, nearly fatal breakdowns that happened at the World Cup, or will the same cast of characters return in a play-it-safe move? It looks like all of U.S. soccer is playing it safe.
Photo via
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments